1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a flexible sleeve for carrying a plurality of generally flat pill containers.
2. Description of Prior Art
Conventional pill bottles generally include a cylindrical body with a threaded child-safe cap. Such conventional pill bottles are expensive to ship because of the packaging and postage required. As such, mail order prescription services spend millions of dollars annually to box and ship prescriptions. Conventional mailing envelopes often result in crushed or otherwise compromised medications from the rigors of mail handling and sorting equipment, transport and delivery.
A recently developed container for prescription medication is an “M-Pack” container manufactured by Juno Techologies LLC of San Diego, Calif. The M-Pack container is a generally flat box with a locking, sliding top for dispensing pills. The M-Pack container can be shipped in conventional mailers at much lower costs than conventional pill bottles and with lower risk of damage. However, a need arises for unitizing two or more containers in a single package for handling and shipment. These containers are described in more detail in Lee et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,123,037, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Conventional container carriers are often used to unitize a plurality of similarly sized containers, such as cans, bottles, jars and boxes and/or similar containers that require unitization. Flexible plastic ring carriers are one such conventional container carrier.
Flexible plastic ring carriers having a plurality of container receiving apertures that each engage a corresponding container may be used to unitize groups of four, six, eight, twelve or other suitable groups of containers into a convenient multipackage.
The present invention successfully unitizes a plurality of generally flat pill containers into a package that may be safely shipped through conventional means.